Page 39 - Neglected Arabia Vol 1 (2)

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NEGLECTED ARABIA i;
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Missionary News and Letters V
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Published Quarterly .*
FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION AMONG THE FRIENDS OF
THE ARABIAN MISSION

Medicine and the Traditions
I
\V. Norman Leak, B.C. (Camb.)
E VERY reader of Neglected Arabia will know something of the • i t,
enormous influence the traditional sayings and doings of Mo­
hammed have on the life of Moslems, and in this article an at­
tempt is made to give some idea of the way the work of the doctor
Js touched by these traditions. In reading them it must be remembered i
that they are not regarded simply as the opinions of a man but the
inspired work of the greatest of all prophets and nearly equivalent to i
the word of God Himself. Thus any opposition between them and
our medical practice is in a very real sense a conflict between their .• * i
religion and ours. For example if you tell a patient that he may
cal anything he likes he looks at you askance and is at once re­
minded that you are an unbeliever, for has not the Prophet said “The
,toinach is the seat of disease, and the mainstay of treatment is diet?” *! •
True to this tradition the Bedouin especially attach enormous import­ » *
ance to diet, and one whose linger you have lanced for a boil will come
Urk perhaps half a dozen times to ask you if he may eat this thing or
that. One such once walked two miles to ask me if he might eat a
special dainty he found was being provided for supper. I had only the
\cry vaguest idea as to what it was but 1 naturally told him he might
cat it and he went away profoundly satisfied, for dainties rarely come
their way.
Very fortunately the Koran itself contains practically nothing directly 1
medical except the statement about honey that “in it is a cure for men”
jrum which it is argued that honey is the best of all medicines, though
there is recorded a tradition of Ali, son-in-law of Mahomet, thai F
-the Arabs will never use a better medicine than *semn' (clarified ••
butter).” The Koranic statement in itself is harmless enough, but the
tradition quoted in connection with it, though splendid m its teaching
I of faith, is pernicious to a degree in its working. It is- to the effect
: that "A man came to the prophet and said ‘My brother is complaining
j. of his stomach/ so he said ‘Give him some honey/ then he came the
\K-cond time and he said, ‘Give him some honey’; then he came a third
jjiinc and he said, ‘Give him some honey/ So he said, ‘I have done so’
■(and he is no better), so he said, “Believe in God and disbelieve your